Respect Life Radio

Adam Blai: Avoiding the demonic by honoring God

"Most of these extraordinary cases come from violating the First Commandment and that means turning to a spirit other than God for comfort, information or power. So, if you're not playing around with other spirits than God, you're not usually going to end up in trouble. Now, if you start getting close to being in trouble, confession and the Mass — for the Catholic who has access to those sacraments — is going to resolve more than 90 percent of the situations," said Adam Blai, author of "The Exorcism Files: True Stories of Demonic Possession" (Sophia Institute Press).

Blai works in the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh and is an expert on "religious demonology and exorcism." Learn more at his website, "Religious Demonology." 

 

Kristen Van Uden: How atheism developed and took root

"This book really shows us that atheism and communism were not natural disasters that were just bound to happen, but rather they were ideological revolutions that were carefully calculated," said Kristen Van Uden, referring to "The Gods of Atheism," a 1971 book by Fr. Vincent Miceli, S.J., recently republished by Sophia Institute Press.

Van Uden is the author spokesperson at Sophia Institute Press and also "studies the persecution of Catholics under communist regimes," a subject on which she is writing a book. Van Uden is editor of, and a writer for, Catholic Exchange, including the recent article, "How to Make an Atheist," which revisits Fr. Miceli's book.

Fr. Timothy Gallagher: How Rule Five from St. Ignatius can help save your spiritual life

Don't make any changes to your intended spiritual practice — such as going to confession, or attending daily Mass or making a planned retreat or reading Scripture — “when you're in the discouragement of spiritual desolation. That's [St. Ignatius of Loyola's Discernment of Spirits] classic Rule Five. I wish everybody in the Church knew that rule. I can't tell you how grateful in my own life I am for that rule; how many bad decisions I have not made because of Rule Five. People love it,” said Fr. Timothy M. Gallagher, O.M.V., author of "When You Struggle in the Spiritual Life: An Ignatian Path to Freedom" (Sophia Institute Press) and other books. Follow him at FrTimothyGallagher.org.

Hear previous Respect Life Radio interviews with Fr. Gallagher: Understanding “Discernment of Spirits in Marriage” and “Overcoming spiritual discouragement in a time of pandemic."

 

Joshua Nelson: How to offer up your fear

"We submit ourselves to fear and that's a kind of enslavement to passion. And that kind of enslavement to passions damages us. It leads us to sin. It leads us to not fight for the greater good — to sins of omission when we should have done the greater good," said Joshua Nelson, who wrote an article, "Offer Up Your Fear," on Catholic Exchange. "By keeping Christ in mind, and at the forefront, it helps us put our attachments in perspective. Because, in many times and many circumstances that I've experienced fear, it's because I'm overly attached to something else."

Follow Nelson's writing at his blog, Thoughts of a Christian Stoa.

Fr. Robert Altier: For marriage and family under attack, here is God’s rescue plan

"The attack is on the family. The family is the foundation for everything, in our own individuals lives, as well as for the Church and society. So for the good of our children — for the good, of course, of the married people — for the Church and society, as well, it's absolutely a necessity right now to really put the focus on marriage. You look at the history of the Church — and God always raises up people to come to the aid of whatever area is under attack. What the devil tries to do in destroying something, God brings good out of evil and actually makes it better," said Fr. Robert J. Altier,  author of "God's Plan For Your Marriage: An Exploration of Holy Matrimony from Genesis to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb" (Sophia Institute Press). 

Hear homilies from Fr. Altier, based in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, at CatholicParents.org and learn about his series, "Beauty, Truth, Goodness: The Fundamentals of Catholicism."

Jonathan Butcher: Let’s start over with Higher Ed

"Coming out of the pandemic, the widespread dissatisfaction with the way that colleges, as well as traditional district public schools, handled education is palpable. We see it in surveys, we see it in parents moving their kids from assigned schools and creating learning pods and choosing private schools and finding other options for them," said Jonathan Butcher, the Will Skillman Fellow in Education, Center for Education Policy, at The Heritage Foundation. He wrote a recent commentary, "Don't Reform Higher Education. Rebuild It." 

Hear a previous Respect Life Radio interview with him, "Critical Race Theory and the new intolerance" and follow him @JM_Butcher on Twitter. 

Michael Pakaluk: Embracing four deaths that can lead to eternal life

"There are two models of courage: one is absence of fear — and the other is being afraid, but being steadfast in holding your position, even though you are afraid. The Christian notion of...courage, which Our Lord presents, is different from both of those," said Michael Pakaluk, Ph.D., professor of ethics at The Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America. 

He wrote an article for The Catholic Thing, titled "The Four Deaths," in which he recommends reading "The Passion and the Death of Jesus Christ," written by St. Alphonsus Ligouri. See more on Pakulak, including his published books, at this Amazon.com link. 

Katie Tubb: Pres. Biden’s climate policy undermines American energy needs

The intent of Pres. Biden's climate policy "is to get rid of coal, oil and natural gas in the long term. As I said earlier, 79 percent of our energy needs come from those three resources. And 90 percent of our transportation energy needs are met through petroleum. So, the president's climate agenda is in direct opposition to Americans' daily well-being. And yet he's out there making climate the issue, but apparently only one percent of Americans actually care about," said Katie Tubb, research fellow at the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment at The Heritage Foundation, who wrote a recent commentary, "What You Need to Know About Biden’s Climate 'Emergency.'"

Follow The Heritage Foundation @Heritage on Twitter. 

Meg Kilgannon: Combating threats against the innocence of children

“I hope that these colleges that are coming from a Christian worldview are teaching the goodness and the beauty and the truth of Western civilization. And the freedom that you experience when you conform your life to the will of God. These are the kind of people that we want coming out of Christian institutions and going into the public school system; to be a witness of that truth. And it's sorely needed. It's desperately needed. And we see that need when we see the videos on sites like Libs of TikTok, the kind of agenda that some of the teachers are leaving college with,” said Meg Kilgannon, a senior fellow for education studies at Family Research Council.

Kilgannon was recently quoted in an article, "'Center for Grooming Children': CDC Site Steers Minors to Facilitated LGBT Chat Forum," in The Washington Stand, a new FRC online "outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview."

Hear a previous Respect Life Radio interview with Kilgannon, "Is God calling you to run for school board?" Follow Kilgannon @meg_kilgannon on Twitter. 

Lauretta Brown: Catholics who proclaim their faith – then work against it

"In some ways it's sad to see people identifying as Catholics but then pushing these issues — not just as things they think are good — but they talk about the language of rights: a right to contraception, a right to same-sex marriage,” said Lauretta Brown, Washington-based staff writer for the National Catholic Register. “In the years that I've covered politics, though, unfortunately I've gotten quite used to seeing this: people being Catholic, talking about their faith, but turning around and disregarding some central Church teachings.”

See Brown's recent article, “Democrats’ Proposal to Codify Same-Sex Civil Marriage Poses Religious-Freedom Issues, Critics Say" and follow her @LaurettaBrown6 on Twitter.